Is The 2008 WSOP Over Yet?
No way around it – the World Series of Poker is what everyone who plays or covers the game rallies around each year.
For those of you who have never experienced it, the WSOP is intense. It can be overwhelming to some. But not for us. We’re no p*ssies.
The WSOP is a deluge of poker. It’s six unrelenting weeks of poker followed by four unrelenting months of ESPN coverage. And there hasn’t even been a fi nal table yet. When is this tournament going to end?
Regardless, the Entities who comprise Wicked Chops Poker have covered the WSOP for four years now, and this was probably our favorite year. So while we’re halfway between the end of the 2008 WSOP and the actual Main Event fi nal table being played, here are some of our favorite stories.
The Year of the Pro™
Of all the terms we trademarked this year (Best Without a Bracelet ™, Last Woman Standing ™, poker™), The Year of the Pro was probably our favorite. While we’re no mathematicians, a casual look at the bracelet winners this year shows a heavy pro infl uence. Big name pros dominated the Player of the Year race. Pros everywhere were like, “Hey, this is our year. It’s the year of us!” We often heard them say this – sometimes cheer it in fact – in the Poker Royalty Lounge on breaks. As the pros made it the year of them, everyone got interested in the WSOP again, which was sorely needed after a lackluster and boring 2007 campaign.
David “Chino” Rheem
For some random reason, at the start of the 2008 WSOP Main Event, we chose David “Chino” Rheem as our pick to go deep out of 6,800 players. As we always say, “there’s no rhyme or reason to brilliance.”™ We’ve made lots of random predictions that have come true over the years, but this was the most impressive. Too bad Chino has a reported outstanding warrant for his arrest in Florida. Although we refuse to believe this is true. How can anyone be mad at a guy named Chino? You can’t get mad at Chino. And you defi nitely can’t arrest a guy named Chino. That just ain’t right. Not Chino.
Good Players Playing Badly
By now you’ve seen Mike Sowers’ hero play gone wrong during the Pot Limit Hold’em Championship about a thousand times on ESPN. And you’ve probably heard of Brandon Cantu’s 10-5 off-suit fl ame-out. Sowers and Cantu are undisputedly solid players though. Not so solid are the 6,700 Main Event donks who tried the same types of plays (with similar results) or called off their stacks with jacks on a A-K-Q board. The amount of poor play was staggering. It left us scratching our heads more than in The Karate Kid when Tommy yells to Daniel, “It must be take a worm for a walk week!” We actually still have no idea what that means. The actor who played Tommy (Rob Garrison) probably still doesn’t know either. If you have any idea what “take a worm for a walk week” means, please email us at contact@ wickedchopspoker.com.
The Year of the Hot Railbird™
Something about poker players (money) brings out some really hot girls (strippers). The volume of hot railbirds at the 2008 WSOP kept our photographer busy and brought much joy to us and our readers. It helped us get up in the morning. It kept us going as play grinded on and on and on. Bless you, hot girls. Bless you.
The Year of the Hot Girl Going Deep™
Not to be confused with or outdone by hot railbirds, a surprising amount of hot girls went deep in this year’s Main Event. By the time the money bubble broke, over 1% of the fi eld was legitimately hot girls. This was unprecedented in poker. We did the research. Until about 2000 that number was somewhere between -10% and 0%. Unless Barbara Enright does it for you. You freaking sicko. Anyway, hats off to Tiffany Michelle, Kara Scott, Maya Geller-Antonius, Carmel Petresco, Evy Ng, and all you other poker hotties and railbirds who made this the most aesthetically pleasing WSOP to date. Because really, at the end of the day, money, fame, reverence… all of that is nothing if there aren’t hot girls around watching and taking part in the action.
